


Etiquette: Hell

by Ira_Dunfort



Series: The Grey Fledgling [6]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: A Second South Downs Cottage, Attempt at Humor, Domestic, Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff and Smut, Gabriel Cooks, Idiots in Love, Ineffable Bureaucracy (Good Omens), Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), Kid Fic, M/M, Mild Smut, Paperwork, Pregnancy, She/Her Pronouns for Beelzebub (Good Omens), South Downs Cottage (Good Omens), Swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-10
Updated: 2019-11-10
Packaged: 2021-01-27 04:10:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,454
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21385876
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ira_Dunfort/pseuds/Ira_Dunfort
Summary: The one in which Gabriel is a domestic doting mess, and shit is getting real as Beelzebub finally sees a doctor.There is cake. And Dagon.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens), Beelzebub & Dagon (Good Omens), Beelzebub/Gabriel (Good Omens)
Series: The Grey Fledgling [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1499264
Comments: 27
Kudos: 143





	Etiquette: Hell

**Author's Note:**

  * For [CodenameCarrot](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CodenameCarrot/gifts), [AEpixie7](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AEpixie7/gifts).

> I do not know how I managed to write more than 3k+ this week. Writing is getting easier for me, it seems. I never would have dreamed of this when I picked the hobby up again. 
> 
> Special thanks to CodenameCarrot for her reproductive insight she shared with me and AEpixie7 for indulging all my silly headcanons. 
> 
> Enjoy.

Gabriel didn't like food. He was an archangel, an agent of the Lord, a heavenly being of pure divine energy and intent. Angels were not designed by Her to need or indulge in consuming sustenance, and he meant to respect that design decision.

Gabriel, despite that, was also in his cottage's kitchen, standing at the counter with his sleeves rolled up and a strand of hair sticking to his forehead as he was preparing a cake. He would most likely not eat a single bite of the pastry, except for tasting it as necessary to make sure it was up to standards. 

"We have a guest this afternoon, I thought we could be hospitable for once." He explained, kneading the dough, the muscles on his forearms perfectly on display. 

"You don't care about _guests_, you just want to see me eat your sweets." Beelzebub objected with her chin propped on one hand as she regarded her celestial boyfriend.

"Maybe." He answered with a cheeky smile. Gabriel was, most of all, as whipped as the cream he had beaten for his beloved Prince. 

"You spoil me rotten." Beelzebub grinned at him. "First workout and now this?" It had been wing day, her favourite to watch. Not a single sight could ever beat Gabriel with his chest bare, sweatshorts hanging low, pulling weights with his wings' wrists. The way the muscles on his back and torso moved from that was delectable. 

"And the shower in-between." Gabriel threw her a heavy-lidded look. 

"Oh, yes." She hummed with a pleased buzz, mind going back to an hour ago when she had Gabriel hold her up against the shower wall, fucking her senseless until the angel came dry. Afterwards, he had soaped her up, washed her hair, all the while kissing her incessantly. "I'm probably the most spoiled demon in existence." 

"What about Crowley?" He asked, rolling the dough into the baking tin.

Beelzebub sighed. "That's not how those two fools work."

"Oh?" He started pressing the corners up the tin's edges. It took a moment, but then his fingers halted when the realization hit him, hard. "Oh, good _Lord_."

Beelzebub laughed full-heartedly at his face, the step by step contortion as if he had bitten into an especially nasty lemon. She had to distract him from whatever his mind's eye was tormenting him with and walked up to him. 

"What are you making?" She inquired, bumping her hip to his, peeking at the various bowls. 

Gabriel exhaled, letting it go. "Bilberry sheet cake." He bent down to place a kiss on the demon's cheek. 

"Aren't those _messy_?" Beelzebub cocked a brow at him. 

"Well--"

"And bilberries leave purple stains, don't they?" She added, dipping a finger into the mashed fruits and sucking it clean. "Tongue, mouth, anything they touch?" She wagged the evidently discoloured digit at the angel. 

He smiled at her in response, placating, nonchalantly faking innocence. 

"I love you, you bastard."

  


  


Hell's allocation of responsibilities was far muddier than Heaven's. Everyone did everything, but every demon reported to someone higher up until word could, in the worst case, reach Satan himself. You did _not_ want that. 

Demons were loosely grouped into teams, these teams had leaders, those leaders had Dukes, those Dukes answered to Lords, who then again reported to their respective Princes if an issue arose. The seven Princes only had to answer the King of Hell, who usually didn't ask for reports until it was too late and he'd lose his temper. Where God stayed silent, he boomed. 

Dagon was the Lord of Files. An odd title for such an ancient creature, yes, but there is an explanation. Since responsibilities aren't assigned based on any system beside picking the closest demon who looked vaguely unoccupied, the wisest thing to do was selecting your own niche of interest and sticking to it. Beelzebub's has been Gluttony, and she kept the title of Lord of Flies even as a Prince. Dagon's prefered niche was, for lack of better words, Collection Of Damning Evidence. If she found dirt on someone, she wrote it down, filed it using a method only she could possibly understand and made sure it was _never_ forgotten. Statute period of limitation was not a thing used in Hell. You were accountable for _every_ deed and mistake of your entire life once you arrived. 

Dagon had a second niche secured for herself and her underlings: Legally Grey Areas. The fish-scaled demon would test any law, any small little rule by God to see if it were watertight. If there was leeway, if the words were unclear and up to interpretation, it went into her files to then be used by demons to sow doubt about Her among humans and tempt them into doing what isn't _quite_ forbidden to set them on a path straight to damnation. No one in Hell knew God's laws better than her. She was the true demon's advocate. 

Which is exactly why she was here, in Beelzebub's living room, clad in a loose dark brown dress that looked to be either a repurposed old rag or an inexplicably expensive designer piece. It made Gabriel's sense of aesthetic _scream_. 

"Payment first." Dagon folded her hands behind her back and slightly bowed at her Prince. "Show me."

"Fine." Beelzebub unbuttoned her black blouse, the soft fabric slid to the ground with barely a rustle. She turned around and spread her arms. "Like what you see?"

"Since when do you wear bras?" Dagon scoffed as she stepped closer. 

"Fuck off, it's a _bralette_, they are comfy." She held a middle finger up above her shoulder. "So, what do you say?"

Gabriel did not like it when Dagon traced one of the many dark lines on Beelzebub's skin with an unnecessarily pointy fingernail. The back, shoulders and upper arms of the Prince of Hell were adorned with several dozens of stylized black flies, a few standing alone, but most connected with dots and streaks. 

"Those are constellations." Their demon guest said reverently, the pad of her thumb smoothing over the fly that represented Alpha Phoenicis. "You didn't just channel your fly aspect into a tattoo, you made some bloody art, my Lord."

"Of course, I don't half-ass my work."

Dagon tried to make heads and tails of the tattoos in front of her. They certainly weren't a direct representation of the night's sky, it rather seemed to be a collection of various constellations puzzled together. "Any significant meaning?"

"Sure." Beelzebub reached backwards to tap her left shoulder decorated with Eridanus and its surrounding stars. "That's the snippet of the sky I saw two years ago between the bedroom curtains when Gabriel and I--"

"Eww, no, keep your blessed secrets." Dagon held up her hands, nose wrinkling. "And you better get dressed before your pet angel discorporates from envy." She shot the archangel a meaningful look, enjoying how wrath was thrown into the mix emitting from him. Gabriel didn't trust her. 

Good. 

  


  


Down the street, a very happily married couple of celestials were enjoying their quiet Thursday afternoon in their opulent garden. The Serpent of Eden was sprawled across a deck chair, newspaper in hand, snickering at petty politics. His angelic spouse was primly set upon a matching chair, feet crossed at his ankles, an old book perched on his belly. 

Suddenly, the newspaper was crumpled shut. "What the heavens?" Crowley mumbled and flicked his forked tongue. "I can smell Dagon, ugh." He sprung to his feet, pulled his sunglasses from his hair back down to his eyes. "Angel, are you coming?"

Aziraphale flipped a page and didn't look up from his victorian romance novel. "Why would I, my dear?" 

Crowley held out his hand expectantly. "I also smell cake."

The idle face of the angel lit into a bright smile. "Well, let's get a wiggle on, then."

  


  


"You're _joking_." Dagon frowned at her Prince, pastry fork stopping mid-air.

"No, I'm not." The other insisted.

"You're really planning on suing Heaven." The colourful baked sweet found its way passed her sharp teeth. 

"Yes." She didn't bother with cutlery, the Lord of Flies ate her bilberry cake with bare hands.

"Because you want to be able to read the Bible." Dagon sounded disbelieving. There had to be more to it. 

"Yes." Beelzebub nodded, licking crumbs off her stained fingers.

"Why?"

"They have information on me that I can't personally access." She could already tell that Dagon wasn't buying this. "Under the European General Data Protection Regulation of May 2018, they can't fucking do this to me anymore."

"Right." The Lord of Files regarded her with growing scepticism. Beelzebub's reason was valid, of course, but only half the truth. It had been Dagon's job for millennia to spot bullshit and her superior was knee-deep. "Why don't you let your purple-eyed wankwings read it to you?"

"That's not what this is about, Dagon."

"Humor me, then." She sat down her empty plate onto the coffee table, leaned back in her armchair and gestured at Beelzebub to finally start talking. 

"I have to be able to read it myself." The Lord of Flies offered. 

"Ok." Dagon nodded minutely but had to press on. If the other wanted her help, she had to know the full story. "But why do you suddenly care about that old drag after more than a millennia?" 

Beelzebub's eyes locked with Gabriel's. Whatever she saw in them made her take a deep breath. 'Because," she turned back to her friend Dagon, "I'm pregnant."

Their demon guest blinked, confused. She must have misheard.

"I want to be able to read a children's Bible to my own baby." The Prince continued, not fighting against her corporation's instinct to place one of her hands on her abdomen. "It's our history, even if biased as fuck."

"But that is not possible." The Lord of Files sputtered. 

"I assure you, it is." She bit back her sarcasm, Dagon needed facts. 

"When were you going to tell me you're pregnant?"

"Really?" She had to roll her eyes. "Right now. I'm doing it right now."

Dagon kept gaping. "How did this happen?"

Gabriel, seated next to his expecting demon in the sofa, pointed at himself, flashing the perplexed Lord an incredulous smile. "Dagon, I know you're not stupid."

"You want me to give you the angelic birds and demonic bees talk?" Beelzebub suggested with a smirk. 

"No. No, I'm good." She scrunched her nose in disgust and glowered at them. Dagon still didn't approve of the idea of _touching_ angels beside acts of violence. "How, uhm, how far are you along?"

"I'll know on Friday, I'm going to see a doctor about this." Beelzebub downright felt Dagon's piercing eyes on her stomach. 

"A _human_ doctor?" She looked scandalized.

"A specialist for pregnancy." The Lord of Flies clarified with a stern voice. "What choice do I have?" She picked up another piece of cake.

Silence fell over the three of them. Dagon stared at her Prince, who stared right back, unflinching. Gabriel just watched, heart aflutter at the display of Beelzebub radiating authority toward her subordinate. 

"Does Satan know?" The Lord of Files ventured. 

"No, he does not." The Prince mumbled around a mouthful of bilberries and cream. 

"Tea?" Gabriel asked, trying to lighten the rapidly darkening mood at the mention of the King's name. 

"Irish, please." Dagon said, slumping down in her chair, leather creaking. 

Gabriel went into the kitchen to pour her a mug of earl grey, a third of it, for good measure, being whiskey as requested. He stayed there a bit longer to give the demons a moment to themselves. 

"An ethereal baby." He heard Dagon wonder as he took the honey from the cupboard for Beelzebub's tea he'd bring along just in case.

"So, _Lord of Files_, are you going to help me?" His dear demon responded. 

"Hell, yeah."

A steaming mug in each hand, he walked back into his living room. "Auntie Dagon, here is your tea." He announced with a sly lilt as he set her drink down. 

"Gabriel, no." Beelzebub said in an instant. "Stop that sweet nonsense."

The archangel pacified her with her own mug, laden with honey. "We're all children of God, brothers and sisters in spirit, which, in some sense, makes our baby her nephew."

The Prince of Hell groaned in response. "You're so full of shit."

Gabriel kissed her forehead. "But you love me anyway, sweetheart."

She smacked his butt as she heard the endearment.

Their guest cleared her throat. "Gabriel, when you called your pretentious bulky body a temple, couldn't you have at least warned Beelzebub that _fertility_ is worshipped there?"

"Just drink your damn tea, Dagon."

  


  


An hour later, and after the doorbell had rung much to Gabriel's chagrin, five immortal creatures were gathered around the dining table where Dagon and Beelzebub were wrapping up a formal complaint to Heaven. The Lord of Files had talked her out of an immediate lawsuit. This way they could have fun threatening them with one at any given chance. 

"Signed Beelzebub, Prince of Hell, Lord of the Flies, aka Izabella Bubenstein among humans—"

"You should add you angelic name as well." Crowley interjected. 

Dagon pinched the bridge of her nose. "Why the Heavens would you say that, you moron?"

"Just to be thorough." He shrugged and pulled his sunglasses off. "Always good to be thorough when it comes to legalities." 

"No demon can use their angelic name." Beelzebub pinned him with a cold glare. 

"Lucifer does." Crowley protested, brow creasing. 

"I guess he's just special." Beelzebub pondered. "He's our King, after all." Why Crowley of all demons had been that close with Satan was beyond her. The traitor had been his 'darling' right until the point when the world didn't end.

The Serpent of Eden shrugged once more. "If you say so."

"Why are you even here?" Dagon growled.

"The cake." Aziraphale provided for the disgruntled agents of Hell. "It is quite good, please send my regards to the pâttisier."

Gabriel straightened his broad shoulders at the compliment. "Why, thank you."

Aziraphale spotted the baking tin on the kitchen counter behind the archangel and _choked_.

"And someone has to make sure the neighbourhood stays safe." Crowley added while patting his coughing husband's back. 

Something sadistic glinted in Dagon's eyes. "Speaking of that, my Lord, point me in the direction of Mrs Clarke." 

  


  


"Mrs Bubenstein, have a seat." Dr Gilbert Villein greeted her with a firm handshake. He was an elderly man, five years short of his pension, sporting a neatly trimmed full grey beard. He was thick-skinned, had a lifetime of experience and, most importantly, his family name sounded fitting if he were to treat a Prince of Hell. 

"Miss." Beelzebub corrected automatically. 

"I assume the young man you brought along is the father?" The doctor shook Gabriel's hand as well. 

"In fact, I am." _Young man._ He liked him. He had manners. "Gabriel Smith, thank you for seeing us."

"Take a seat, Mr Smith." He gestured at the second armchair placed in front of his desk. "I have a few questions before we take a closer look at your lady." He pulled out his reading glasses and set them low on his nose. "My job is to make sure all _three_ of you are in the best condition possible." He pulled the blocky keyboard of his old PC closer. "Ms Bubenstein, as you two aren't married, will the child be raised by both of you or…?" He left that open and looked at her from above his glasses. Depending on the answer he'll adjust any and all information handed to either just her or the both of them, as well as how far he'll have Mr Smith involved.

"Yes." Beelzebub answered and reached for Gabriel's hand. "He's stuck with me for life, ring or not."

"And I will love every second of it." The archangel added.

Both sounded like they were dripping with sarcasm, but somehow it did seem genuinely affectionate nonetheless. 'What an odd couple', Dr Villein thought. "Glad to hear that. Is this your first child?" 

"Yes." The two nodded at him. 

"Were you trying for it?"

"No. We, uhm," Beelzebub paused. 

Gabriel took over for her. "We did not think we were compatible. That it was possible."

"A happy coincidence, then." He smiled at the two. Ms Bubenstein was lucky, given her age, but he knew better than to comment on that. "To get a timeframe, when was your last period, Ms Bubenstein?"

"Period?" She blinked at him as if not entirely understanding what he had asked. Her hand tightened on Gabriel's.

"As we already said, we did not think this was possible for us. There is no need to worry or investigate, Dr Villein." Making humans accept his words and ignore any urge to doubt him, it was easy for the messenger of God. 

Dr Villein moved to the next question. "Are there any friends or family members with children, so you have a rough idea of what to expect?"

"No. No one like _that_." Gabriel waved his hand dismissively. 

The intonation was off, yet he let it slide and wrote it up to his peculiar character. What man his age would wear purple contacts, really?

Beelzebub recalled a detail about Crowley. "A _friend_ of ours, he used to be a nanny." 

"Well then, that's a good start." He smiled at them. "Are you having any issues so far? Morning sickness, cramps, dizziness?"

"No, I'm just more tired than usual. I nap for an additional hour or three a day." Which was all she slept, but he did not need to know that. 

"Lucky you." He took a few notes. "How is your diet?"

"He's managing that, so I assume it is perfect." She saw Gabriel's chest puff from the corner of her eye.

Tests were handled, Beelzebub was not amused. They had her pee into a cup, how utterly degrading. They had taken her blood pressure, which she had prepared for. It was flawless, obviously. Her temperature was measured, which she had adjusted her corporation for as well. Her weight checked out fine. They had taken blood. This admittedly made them nervous, no human should ever hold a demon prince's blood in their possession. Gabriel would be taking care of it.

Shortly after, Beelzebub sat reclined on a bigger chair surrounded by various machines. She had her shirt pulled up, her black slacks pulled down a little and gel was poured onto her stomach. The angel did not like how a gadget was pressed to her middle, but he had to stay calm. Even the smallest spark of lightning could ruin this. 

"Say hi to your new family member." Their doctor announced, turning the monitor to grant Gabriel and Beelzebub a better glimpse. 

It was all static, a mix of black and white but it was right there. A blurry, tiny human-shaped being with _wings_. Gabriel made sure the doctor didn't spare them a single thought, but he couldn't tear his eyes from the sight, neither could Beelzebub. He watched the picture reveal more and more as the device was moved. He knew Dr Villein was talking to both of them, but he didn't comprehend a single word. How could he, when the baby's little hands were held in front of its face as if in prayer? It looked so tranquil. Then its feet started to jerk, the featherless wings behind it shimmied just enough to leave no doubt about what they were. 

Dr Villein flipped a switch on his machine, and suddenly the room was filled with the baby's heartbeat. 

"Gabriel, are you fucking crying?"

  


  


As it turned out, Beelzebub was already eleven weeks along. She spread her hands over her abdomen, still trying to comprehend it all. There was a new life inside her, moving, growing. A blank slate neither angel nor demon as the little one would not be inherently employed by Heaven or Hell. The baby was _free_, and they'd keep it that way. 

Once they were back home, the demon put a printed ultrasound picture on their fridge and the schedule for future appointments next to it. She looked over to the father of her child. Gabriel was preparing a deliciously stinky cheese soup with spring onions and bacon cubes for her, a saccharine and dazed smile unwavering on his face.

Beelzebub pulled out her phone. The first thing she did was sending the Antichrist an ultrasound picture to shut him up. She sent it to Crowley as well, including a list of actual helpful books Dr Villein had recommended, remarking that they seemed fairly clueless about the entire pregnancy.

Then she forwarded the picture to Dagon. 

Shit is getting _real_.

**Author's Note:**

> 29 weeks to go! I actually bought a book on pregnancy so I don't screw this up too badly. Any insight is appreciated, feel free to contact me if you see any mistakes. 
> 
> See you in the next instalment ♥!
> 
> PS: I love each and every one of you readers.


End file.
